People spent $38 on unfiltered 'Hot Dog Water,' and the artist behind it hopes to encourage critical thinking

Americans eat 20 billion hot dogs a year, but could hot dog water be the new hot trend? No. Of course not. (Photo: Getty)

There are plenty of products on the market nowadays that promise to be the cure for anything that ails you. Dab an essential oil on your temple and your fibromyalgia will dissipate! Treat your skin to a soak in a fish-gland infused oatmeal bath to look 10 years younger! Try the newest fad diet and the pounds will melt away! At this point, we’ll believe anything to be young, beautiful, and healthy.

Except for unfiltered hot dog water, right?

A pleasant enough sales pitch may have some people shelling out $38 for a product you can make yourself with a packet of Oscar Meyer wieners and some boiling water.

Vancouver’s Main Street hosted their annual Car-Free Day festival this weekend, and one of the vendors raised a few eyebrows.

This booth that sells unfiltered hot dog water is hands down the strangest thing at Car-Free day, and I have no idea – literally none – as to whether it is real or an elaborate stunt pic.twitter.com/NK2KcTfnHm

Hot Dog Water CEO Douglas Bevans told Global News, “the protein of the Hot Dog Water helps your body uptake the water content, and the sodium and all the things you’d need post-workout.”

He added, “We’ve created a recipe, having a lot of people put a lot of effort into research and a lot of people with backgrounds in science creating the best version of Hot Dog Water that we could.”

Bevans is a performance artist, and the beverage was created to encourage critical thinking, especially when it comes to the “snake oil salesmen” of health marketing.

The fine print on the bottle reads, “Hot Dog Water in its absurdity hopes to encourage critical thinking related to product marketing and the significant role it can play in our purchasing choices.”

People were either confused or amused by the stunt — however, some did drink the product.

Bevans, who spent $1,200 of his own money on bottles, labels, and branding, said that he hopes “people will actually go away and reconsider some of these other $80 bottles of water that will come out that are ‘raw’ or ‘smart waters,’ or anything that doesn’t have any substantial scientific backing but just a lot of pretty impressive marketing.”